Honesty
by StoryDiva
Summary: Set in the X2 world. PyroRogue. Rogue POV, pondering importance of honesty.


Honesty  
  
Copyright@2003  
  
Author Note: This is a response to a prompt challenge placed in the quillandink community at Livejournal.  
  
Disclaimer: I do no have any association nor do I own any of the characters from the X-Men movies/comics/franchise. However, to be able to borrow Pyro would be really nifty.  
  
Words: The words "The trick is to keep breathing", sand, honor guard, a cozy quilt on a cold winter day, dinosaurs, quicksand  
  
**  
  
There's a precision to it. The way words fall off the tongue, slightly censored for feeling's sake, compared to the massive number of thoughts running through my brain at any given moment. Like that he smells funny. I think it; I think it all the time. I can't decide if it's his aftershave or shampoo or an odor problem on his part, but it's always there, in the back of my mind-Bobby smells. It's everywhere too-inundating everything he touches. I love him, but my God, when he wraps his arms around me, engulfing me in the polyester lining of his shirt, pressing his cold hands (And I do mean cold-I think Jack from Titanic as he shivered in the water maintained a higher body temperature than Bobby does) into the small of my back to bring me closer to his chest, it takes all my willpower not to scream out to be left alone.  
  
I've even tried to use my less-than-beneficial mutant powers to get out of closeness from time to time, but Bobby doesn't care. Or so he says. I can't help but wonder if I'm something for him to prove to himself, that Bobby loves the idea of me much more than the actual girl he faux touches. I'm the equivalent of quicksand and he's the helpless sailor who falls into my evil suck-your-life-force-out clutches, never intentionally, simply a matter of Mother Nature and biology at work.  
  
I never say that aloud though because there is no need to, shouldn't be anyway, and what's the point of hurting someone. Unless, of course, you're John, who seems to thrive on pointing out people's weaknesses. He doesn't do it spitefully or to elicit an angered reaction. It simply is for him, the way breathing is for most of us. A rudimentary reaction. John says it's because he sees no reason to lie to someone or to allow them to think things that aren't true, no matter how the words could be misconstrued and destroy relationships. I disagree and we often debate this notion back and forth as if we're the great philosophers of our time. Is it better to be brutally honest or to hide behind the pretense of manners?  
  
I can't help but think that John is the victim of his own upbringing, surely criticized for things out of his control, behaviors and idiosyncrasies that are truly great gifts, but were treated as flaws in his childhood. Sometimes it's all I can do not to pound the idea into his head with my fist that it's possible for people to love him, as is, no complaints; no need to point out every disagreeable trait that he should change about himself.  
  
John doesn't get it. He doesn't understand that I wouldn't change a thing about him, even on his most annoying of days (of which there are plenty). He rolls his eyes, fiddles with that stupid lighter, manipulating the flame into small shimmering balls, and says, "I'm like sand, Rogue."  
  
"Like sand?" I scoff and off his neutral gaze, I wave at the fire, causing it to slightly shift in direction before he recreates his Ode to Balls a Plenty and ask, "What does that even mean?"  
  
"People love the beach, the idea of sand beneath their toes and water misting on their face, but you get fed up with after awhile. The water is polluted and filled with creatures like crabs that pinch your toes. Not to mention sand gets into everything, sticks to your skin whether you want it to or not. It takes me hours to get the fucking sand off my feet when I go to the beach."  
  
I smile and respond, "John, I hate to tell you this, but you suck at metaphors. Avoid them at all costs. If your life depends on telling a metaphor, die. It'll be less painful."  
  
"Ha!" he says with an arrogant tilt of his head that only he can pull off and well aware that his voice has raised about ten octaves over the course of our conversation. "HA, HA! I knew it!"  
  
"What?"  
  
"You admitted that I suck at something. You obviously don't lack any problems in the honesty department where I'm concerned," he replies, nudging me in the side with his elbow playfully before retaking his ongoing job of spinning the wheel of his lighter one more time.  
  
I've decided that John has to be the most infuriating, impossibly stubborn, and ridiculously aloof guy that I've come across, and that's taking into consideration that I maintain a friendship with Logan. John is utterly lacking that ability to repress his thoughts-if he doesn't say it right to your face than he makes sure that his dismay/pleasure/etc is duly noted in his sly smile or roll of the eyes-and it's maddening at times.  
  
He also thinks we're a lot alike. He's positive that I'm a kindred soul in the movie in his mind.  
  
Damn if he isn't right about that.  
  
Like the day back in February when he swaggered into my room at dawn, oblivious to the fact that he shouldn't be there, and slid underneath my quilt with me. It was a cold day, the perfect Sunday morning for remaining in bed, curled up in the quilt that my grandmother made for me when I was eight years old-the one thing I couldn't bear to leave behind when I departed from home. The heat secreted off his body in an almost steam and I silently blamed the redness in my cheeks on that warmth. Nothing to do with the fact that his thigh was precariously close to my own, the fabric of his sweatpants brushing against my skin.  
  
John didn't even glance in my direction, his eyes affixed to the lights above us, and he said, "The trick is to keep breathing."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You heard me, Rogue."  
  
"You don't make sense."  
  
He glanced at me and smiled. I hated the way he did it, borderline leer, as if to say that he knew my every disloyal and hurtful thought. That he was psychically attuned to the way my mind worked, knowing full well that there were times when I wished I was anywhere else but with Bobby or at the school, secluded from the world as if I had something to be ashamed of. John's gaze rolled over me languidly and he could see that I sometimes thought of my life like I was watching the honor guards switch duty at the tombs of unknown soldiers, boring yet important and so, so rigid in its ways.  
  
"Rogue, Rogue, Rogue," he replied with a tsk sound and small laugh. He chucked my chin and said, "What am I going to do with you?"  
  
I jerked away from his touch. John was never afraid to touch me. I used to scold him about it, telling him to be careful and use the brain God gave him. He never heeded my warnings, brushing them off as paranoia on my part ("Thanks for the concern, but in case you've forgotten, I do actually know how to work the muscles in my hand and can remove it from your shoulder if it starts to hurt. Even little kids know not to keep their hand on the stove that's burning their hand, Rogue.") and I was secretly glad for that. Though I doubted it was a secret to him, so aware of my thoughts, long before I even contemplated them. He shrugged and purposefully ran his fingers over the freckles on my collarbone with an intense look as if he was the artist and I was his canvas.  
  
"Your feet are freezing," he complained.  
  
"So get out."  
  
"I need to talk to you."  
  
"And it couldn't wait until breakfast?"  
  
"No."  
  
"John, people will talk-"  
  
"Let them. Who cares?"  
  
"I do and I'm sure Bobby does."  
  
"Well, Bobby's an idiot."  
  
"Stop it."  
  
John grinned and kept going, "He is sometimes. We both know it. Bobby resides in Moronville with frequent outings to Gullibleland. I want to slap him upside the head and tell him how naïve and stupid he can be about people. He gives them way too much credit." I couldn't help but notice the way he said "them" as if we weren't a part of the world, and I guess we weren't. It wasn't too upsetting to me, not like it used to be, and I wondered if that was because John was lying in my bed, arms folded behind his head, laughing to himself. John wrinkled his nose and his brow and added, "And he smells funny."  
  
I tried not to giggle, I really did, but a laugh escaped from my mouth. I slapped him playfully on his chest and said, "I told you to stop."  
  
"Notice you don't deny it."  
  
"John."  
  
"Maybe it's the stench of permanent freezer burn?" he continued with another laugh and I found myself resting my head against the crook in his neck, my hair splattering across his tan tee-shirt, a portrait of abstract art.  
  
Light filtered in through the blinds in my room, dancing across us, and John lifted his hand, not pushing me away but rather allowing me to stay attached to his other side. He curved his palm into a puppet-like position and said in a high pitch voice, "Hello Rogue."  
  
"You're insane," I laughed. I loved laughing with him. Bobby could be so serious all the time-life was serious, things were serious-and it felt wonderful to act my age and enjoy things, even something as bizarre as shadow puppets.  
  
He again repositioned his hand and said, "How about a dinosaur?" He nudged my side and went back to the high pitch voice, "I'm the dinosaur that kicked Barney's ass for being purple."  
  
"We're mutant friendly here."  
  
"Being purple isn't a mutation, it's just silly," he observed.  
  
I lowered his hand and said, "Tell me you didn't wake me up at the crack of dawn to share your new passion for shadow puppetry?"  
  
"Nah."  
  
"You're such a brat."  
  
"I had to tell you that the trick was to keep breathing," he said simply, as if it explained everything. He stared at me for a long while, which in reality was probably only a few seconds, before patting the top of my head and rising from my bed. He tiptoed to the door, suddenly concerned with waking other people, and with one hand pressed into the knob, he turned his neck and said, "Sweet dreams, Rogue."  
  
Exasperation, thy name is John Allerdyce.  
  
I think the reason John makes me so crazy, why he can get under my skin and figure me out to the point that I feel like a bad cliché, is because he sees me. Not the white strand of hair or the permanent pair of gloves I hold onto like a lifejacket, not even the way my eyes dart around rooms nervously looking for a familiar pair to greet me. He sees those thoughts that I've always tried to hide-because there is method to my madness-and embraces them. Those horrible passing thoughts that sidle through my consciousness are allowed to be spoken around John.  
  
John never punishes me for it. Not like I do to him. Because there are days that I hate him for knowing me so well. I find myself meeting his mischievous smirk from across a room, well aware of the way his brain is formulating a diabolical scheme to cause a commotion (like the incident where he placed crazy glue on all the chairs in Professor Xavier's classroom), and we both know the power he has over me. He can figure out how much he means to me, how I seek him out in a crowd beyond all the rest, and how Bobby will never know that I think he smells because I don't feel that comfortable with him.  
  
John knows that I would tell him if he smelled. He would applaud my honesty and purposefully wrap his arms around me.and I would think, I would wonder, "Why Rogue? Why can't you be so honest with yourself?"  
  
{/fin} 


End file.
